On the afternoon of Tuesday, September 22nd, Tesla held a virtual meeting of shareholders and combined it with Battery Day to announce innovations with their battery cell technology. Battery Day was supposed to be last March but was delayed due to COVID-19. The event was broken up into three main segments: Proxy Vote, Annual Shareholder Presentation, and finally Battery Day.
Proxy Vote
The first course of business was the proxy vote and a few things stood out but seemed to be glazed over with the overall event. One was suggesting Tesla begin setting aside assets for paid advertising which got rejected. The other vote that stood out was shareholders that brought up concerns around labor conditions, harassment, and assault within the company. Here is what I tweeted about it:
#Tesla is really getting hit on the labor relations, child labor in its cobalt supply chain, and care for their employees by investors/shareholders especially during this pandemic. I personally see this as being a weakness of Tesla. Thoughts @jimcramer?
— Andrew Breiter-Wu 🌎☀️💰 (@AndrewBreiterWu) September 22, 2020
Annual Shareholder Presentation
After the shareholder business matters, Elon emerged from behind the stage. “We got the Tesla drive-in movie theater today. Can you guys hear me?” The Crowd erupted with honks of their squeaky Tesla horns.
The presentation opened with Musk proudly stating how Gigafactory in Shanghai went from “a pile of dirt to full volume production in 15 months.”
Musk impressed upon viewers and attendees that the hardest part about innovation and manufacturing is scaling production. Coming up with a prototype is relatively easy compared to manufacturing at scale. Musk went on to explain how a big goal for the company is to “tighten up the time from when a vehicle is ordered to when it is delivered.” Having factories on every continent makes delivery times shorter.
One important milestone that Musk was proud to share was having four consecutive quarters of GAAP profitability. Musk had concerns about his ability to reach profitability this past quarter but he pushed his team to make it happen. Unfortunately, it did require questionable COVID-19 safety practices within his factories during the peak of the Coronavirus lock downs.
Tesla Battery Day
The main event of the afternoon was Tesla unveiling innovation in their battery technology for its Batter Day. Musk explained that there are three main keys to a sustainable energy future:
- Sustainable energy generation
- Reliable energy storage
- Electric vehicles
The two biggest announcements from Elon was the goal of a Terawatt-hour Scale Battery Production and halving the cost per kWh of their battery cells. Hats off if he can make it happen. Breiter Planet Properties procures batteries from Tesla for our projects and would love to see this become a reality.
It needs to be understood that this is not immediate but its a goal that the Tesla team is working towards over the next two to three years.
#Tesla has announced at #BatteryDay their plan to halve the cost per kWh for battery cells. pic.twitter.com/kJbJveB1T1
— Andrew Breiter-Wu 🌎☀️💰 (@AndrewBreiterWu) September 22, 2020
Those who are plugged into the renewable energy world, know that reliable, affordable energy storage is a key to unlock the full potential of renewable energy like wind and solar. Improving battery technology will also help increase the distance between charges for electric vehicles.
One of the main technological breakthroughs revealed on Battery Day was an elimination of tabs from batteries. Removing tabs from batteries will increase electric vehicle’s range and power. It also simplifies the production process. This breakthrough will potentially increase the range of these batteries by 16%.
Another exciting announcement from Battery day was that Tesla has a goal of continuing to make more affordable cars, with a future model possibly priced at $25,000. Elon stated, “We don’t yet have an affordable car” and feels this is a solution.
Some of Tesla’s critics have noted in the past that the company does not always live up to its promises, but today, Musk was careful not to get swept up in the hype. Musk candidly explained: “there is a clear path to success, but a ton of work from here to there.”
There was also a sentiment that Elon rushed through some really important details and breakthroughs across his presentation. Many of the viewers of the broadcast longed for more details but given that Tesla had to combine both their Annual Shareholder Meeting with Battery Day, this is understandable.
Overall it was an interesting afternoon, and the market is staying tuned to see how these announcements get executed over the next two to three years. Now the only thing we are curious about is, what will the $TSLA stock look like tomorrow?
Watch the full Tesla Annual Shareholder Meeting and Battery Day below:
